What Is Icewine and How Is It Made?
By The Aged And Amber Spirits Team
Icewine is one of the most labor-intensive and weather-dependent wine styles in the world, built around a production process that deliberately courts real agricultural risk.
The Basic Process
Icewine (or "Eiswein" in German) is made from grapes left on the vine well past normal harvest time, into the depths of winter, until they freeze solid at temperatures typically required to be well below freezing (often -8°C/18°F or colder by regulation in major producing regions). The frozen grapes are then pressed while still frozen.
Why Freezing Matters
When frozen grapes are pressed, the water content stays frozen as ice crystals and gets left behind, while the concentrated sugar, acid, and flavor compounds — which don't freeze at the same temperature as water — press out as an intensely concentrated, syrupy juice. This produces dramatically more concentrated sweetness than a wine made from grapes harvested and pressed at a normal temperature.
The Genuine Risk Involved
Because grapes must stay on the vine for months longer than a normal harvest, producers risk losing the entire crop to birds, disease, rot, or an unexpected warm spell that prevents proper freezing — a real gamble that contributes directly to icewine's characteristically high price.
Where Icewine Is Made
Canada (particularly Ontario's Niagara Peninsula and British Columbia) and Germany are the two most significant icewine-producing regions, both benefiting from reliably cold winters that make the required deep freeze achievable most years, unlike many other wine regions.
Flavor Profile
Icewine is intensely sweet with equally intense, balancing acidity — the concentrated sugar alone would taste cloying without the parallel concentration of natural acid, producing a wine that's simultaneously very sweet and genuinely refreshing rather than flat or syrupy.
How to Serve and Pair It
Serve well-chilled in small pours, given its intensity — icewine pairs especially well with fruit-based desserts, strong cheeses (particularly blue cheese, where the sweetness balances the cheese's sharpness), or simply on its own as a rich, contemplative sipper.
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